Mileage Run

1,000,000 miles ...it's a lot

What's a mileage run?  When you travel a lot (as Scott did for business back in "the old days"), the airlines grant you certain status ("Elite status") based on how many flights you make or how many miles you travel. It's good for a year. They make this more interesting by offering bonuses for certain travel - Business Class bonus. Fly-through-Chicago-bonus. Stand on your head and quack like a duck bonus. The more elite your elite status, the more perqs you get, and better treatment. For example, the highest elite level on United Airlines ("1K" or 100,000 miles/year) comes with the ability to request upgraded (Coach-First Class) flights before anybody else, and also the past few years they've sent six "system wide" (use anywhere in the world) confirmed (don't have to standby) upgrade certificates. These things are like gold, they're why we have flown in business class from the US to Asia for $600 or $700 round trip.

Naturally, the airlines want you to spend as much time (thus money) on their airline, and they want you to do it year after year. We've even seen promotions in the form "Fly just 3 more segments this January-March than you did last year, and..." whatever. We'll play this game when it suits us, and ignore it when it doesn't. More below.

However, one gets used to being treated like a prized pooch on the airline, instead of a mutt. But when you're not traveling so much, it's difficult to maintain that frequent flyer status. For Scott, "1K" was not achievable for this year (2003), and the middle level ("Premier Executive" - sounds lofty, doesn't it?) seemed far away. But at the end of the year, Scott was short a mere 5500 miles - a little more than east coast to west coast and back. But "a little more" is the operative phrase here, which brings us back to the story that prompted this little digression.

Meet the New Million Miler

With his most recent trip, Scott completed one million miles (actual miles flown, not frequent flyer points) on United airlines. This conveys "Premier Executive" frequent flyer status for life.  Scott already has Million Mile status on American Airlines.

This concept (flying two million miles) - may seem inconceivable - but Scott's been traveling for about 23 years.

Some Frequent Flyer "Economics"

The objective of frequent flyer programs are to encourage passenger loyalty and, hopefully, more money to the airlines (they certainly could use it these days). So airlines do all kinds of things to maneuver passengers into flying with them and paying more for tickets.

Here are some examples:

If you become an "Elite" member you start to get bonus miles (fly 100 miles, get 200 points), First Class upgrades... United has sent $100 bottles of champagne, and chocolates truffles to Scott (not recently!). Perquisites vary by airline, and each airline vies with the others to come up with a program that locks in the flyer without bankrupting the airline. (OK that strategy hasn't been completely successful) Fly through an unpopular location (Chicago in the winter), get a bonus. Helps level traffic and use pre-paid airport gates better Fly so many miles (or so many segments, for example Manchester-Chicago-Dallas is 3 segments), earn points toward an upgrade to First Class. Once earned, these expire, encouraging flyers to "use them or lose them" - and of course they're only valid on that airline Buy a full-fare ticket, get nn% bonus miles

...and on and on.

This Frequent Flyer "world" is its own little subculture. There are probably half a dozen magazines devoted to frequent travelers, business travel etc. We like Webflyer, and Business Traveler. And countless websites.